Kristin A. Goss, Susan B. King Distinguished Professor of Public Policy

Contact Info:

Office Hours:

Fall 2023: Tuesday, 2-4 pm, Sanford 234

Education:

Ph.D., Harvard University, 2003

A.M., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1999

M.P.P., Duke University, 1996

Master of Public Policy, with faculty award, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1996

B.A., Harvard University, 1987

Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., 1987

Specialties:

American Politics
Political Institutions

Research Interests:

Current projects: Women's Policy Agendas, 1880-2000, Community Foundations & the State: A Cross-National Study

Kristin A. Goss came to Duke in 2005 as an assistant professor of public policy studies and political science. Her research focuses on why people do (or don’t) participate in political life and how their participation or non-participation affects public policymaking. At Duke, she is working with Professor Joel Fleishman to expand our understanding of philanthropic foundations’ impact on public policy.

Goss is the author of Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America (Princeton University Press, 2006). The book is based on her doctoral study, which won the American Political Science Association’s 2003 Harold D. Lasswell Award for the nation’s best dissertation in policy studies.

Goss has published articles in Social Science Quarterly, Women & Politics, Politics & Gender; Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and the Fordham Law Review, as well as several book chapters. She is author of Better Together, the report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America. She is working on a book about how the policy agendas of women’s voluntary associations have changed over the past two centuries and how those changes have affected the politics of important policy issues.

Before her appointment at Duke, Professor Goss spent three years at Georgetown University, where she taught courses on the U.S. political system, political participation, the media’s role in politics and the politics of the policymaking process. She received a BA degree with high honors from Harvard; an MPP from Duke; and a PhD in political science from Harvard. Her master’s thesis explored the challenges facing voluntary associations seeking to stop the epidemic of gun violence in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s.

Goss grew up near Denver, where she developed a passion for figure skating and animal welfare. Before entering academe, she was a Washington-based journalist for six years covering non-profit organizations and foundations for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has served as a consultant to two government agencies: the U.S. Agency for International Development (San José, Costa Rica, 1995); and the Corporation for National and Community Service (Washington, D.C., 2002-2003). Her earliest political memory is of Watergate, which her parents defined as “a hotel in Washington.”

Goss splits her time between Durham and Arlington, VA. She also serves as vice president of the League of Women Voters of Arlington.

Curriculum Vitae

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Goss, KA; Heaney, MT, Organizing Women as Women: Hybridity and Grassroots Collective Action in the 21st Century,, Perspectives on Politics, vol. 8 no. 1 (March, 2010), pp. 27-27, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [repository], [doi]  [abs].
2. Goss, KA, Never Surrender? How Women's Groups Abandoned Their Policy Niche in U.S. Foreign Policy Debates, 1916–2000, Politics and Gender, vol. 5 no. 4 (January, 2009), pp. 453-489, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [Gateway.cgi], [doi]  [abs].
3. Goss, KA, Foundations of feminism: How philanthropic patrons shaped gender politics, Social Science Quarterly, vol. 88 no. 5 (December, 2007), pp. 1174-1191, WILEY [doi]  [abs].
4. Goss, KA; Gastwirth, DA; Parkash, SG, Research service-learning: Making the academy relevant again, Journal of Political Science Education, vol. 6 no. 2 (April, 2010), pp. 117-141, Informa UK Limited [repository], [doi]  [abs] [author's comments].
5. Goss, KA; Shames, SL, Political Pathways to Child Care Policy: The Role of Gender in Statebuilding, in Women and Politics around the World: Comparative History and Survey (2009), ABC-CLIO .
6. Goss, KA; Skocpol, T, Changing Agendas: The Impact of Feminism on American Politics, in Gender and Social Capital, edited by Neill, BO; Gidengil, E (2006), pp. 323-356, New York: Routledge [doi] .
7. Putnam, R; Goss, K, Introduction, in Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, edited by Putnam, R (2002), pp. 3-19, Oxford University Press .
8. Goss, KA, Rethinking the Political Participation Paradigm: The Case of Women and Gun Control, Women and Politics, vol. 25 no. 4 (December, 2003), pp. 83-118, Informa UK Limited [doi]  [abs].
9. Goss, KA, Policy, politics, and paradox: The institutional origins of the great American gun war, Fordham Law Review, vol. 73 no. 2 (November, 2004), pp. 681-714 .
10. Goss, KA, Volunteering and the long civic generation, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 28 no. 4 (January, 1999), pp. 378-415, SAGE Publications [doi]  [abs].
11. Goss, KA, Good Policy, Not Stories, Can Reduce Violence, Chronicle Review (Chronicle of Higher Education) (May, 2007) .
12. Goss, KA, "Keeping Arms Behind Our Backs", Newark Star-Ledger; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Des Moines Register; Raleigh News & Observer; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Jackson Clarion-Ledger (October, 2006) [stm] .
13. Goss, KA, Better Together: Report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America (December, 2000), Cambridge, Mass. .